BlackBerry Bold 9930 (Verizon Wireless) review:

BlackBerry Bold 9930 (Verizon Wireless)

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The GoodThe RIM BlackBerry Bold 9930 has a wider and thinner design and is exceedingly well-made. It boasts stunning graphics, a new touch-screen display, an amazing physical QWERTY keyboard, a faster 1.2GHz processor, and the new BlackBerry OS 7 that brings augmented reality apps, 720p HD video recording, and more. We're also pleased with the photo quality of the 5-megapixel camera.

The BadThe BlackBerry Bold 9930 doesn't have the best call quality, and we think its price is too steep. The OS 7 user interface is not that different from OS 6.

The Bottom LineThe BlackBerry Bold 9930 is the best QWERTY BlackBerry to date, but should be priced lower.

Review Sections

The BlackBerry Bold 9930 is the best BlackBerry Bold we've ever seen, full stop. Indeed, it's clear to us why RIM sees the Bold 9900 series as the flagship brand of its latest line of OS 7 handsets. Sure, the Torch 9810 has that slide-out keyboard and the Torch 9850/9860 boasts a full touch-screen interface. But the Bold 9930 builds upon the iconic BlackBerry design and improves it tenfold. The new Bold's stunning good looks, impressive feature set, under-the-hood improvements thanks to OS 7, and stellar performance firmly place it in the premium smartphone category.

Yet, we do have a few concerns. As much as we like it, the Bold's design is really more evolutionary than revolutionary, and OS 7 is also not terribly different from OS 6 in terms of the user interface. Moreover, we can't help but feel the Bold 9930 is a little overpriced at $249.99 after a rebate and a two-year contract. BlackBerry loyalists might be willing to pay the price, but it would be understandable to feel a bit skittish about paying so much for a handset that isn't correspondingly better than the competition.

Design If all you did was take a quick glance at the Bold 9930, you might dismiss it as just another boring BlackBerry messaging phone. And that's a shame, because the Bold 9930 is far from it. While the design might look the same as its slate QWERTY brethren, the Bold 9930 is built with a lot more style in mind. It's clad in high-quality plastic on the front and back, and a solid piece of stainless steel forms its sturdy outer frame. The glossy battery cover and soft-touch bezel on the back add to the phone's premium feel. Indeed, the Bold 9930 strikes us as the handset equivalent of a luxury town car.

The BlackBerry Bold 9930 has a luxurious feel in the hand.

Measuring 4.53 inches long by 2.6 inches wide by 0.41 inch thick, the Bold 9930 could maybe lay claim to being a sports car as well. Its slender profile makes it the thinnest BlackBerry yet, which really does add to the phone's sleek and elegant aesthetic. More importantly, RIM has wisely decided to widen the Bold 9930 back to the original BlackBerry 9000 size, which allows for a larger display and a roomier keyboard (which we'll discuss later).

The Bold's 2.8-inch display is another triumph. RIM pumped up the resolution to 640x480 pixels, which might not seem like much, but cram that into a small display like this and the result is really smooth and sharp images with nary a pixel in sight. OS 7's new Liquid Graphics technology that promises improved graphics and animations also comes into play here, and we were impressed by the results. The Bold 9930's display certainly looks better than any of its predecessors.

What makes the Bold 9930 especially interesting however, is that it is the first Bold to have a touch-screen display. At first we were rather skeptical about this, as we generally like our touch screens to be a lot bigger so that our fingers have enough room to move around. Indeed, we found that we had to be a lot more accurate when selecting certain tiny icons. But we soon found that we could use the touch screen for quick scrolling and tapping, and then switch to the optical touch pad if we wanted more precision. It's much easier to scroll through long Web pages just by swiping the touch screen, for example. We also appreciate the pinch-to-zoom gesture on the touch screen.

OS 7's aforementioned Liquid Graphics is supposed to improve the responsiveness of the touch screen, which works in conjunction with the Bold 9930's 1.2GHz processor to give a smooth and zippy navigation experience. We had no problems for the most part, and we loved how fluid the swiping was. However, we did encounter the occasional hiccup where we had to tap repeatedly at something before it registered. As we mentioned earlier, we solved this by using the optical touch pad for increased accuracy, but we wish it wasn't necessary.

Below the display are the usual Send, Menu, Back, and End/Power keys along with the familiar optical touch pad in the middle. As with the other BlackBerry devices, holding down the Menu key will bring up a list of recently used applications so you can switch between them easily. Sitting above the display is a proximity sensor.

The keyboard on the Bold 9930 is absolutely top-notch, and is possibly the best BlackBerry keyboard we've ever used. As we mentioned earlier, the Bold 9930 has a wide keyboard that hearkens back to the original Bold, aka the BlackBerry 9000, which is still widely loved by BlackBerry fans. The keyboard on the Bold 9930 is very spacious, and the keys themselves are taller and larger than before. Each key has a raised beveled edge that results in a satisfying click when pressed. We found typing to be easy, fast, and efficient.

The Micro-USB port and 3.5mm headset jack are located on the left spine, while the volume rocker and customizable convenience key are on the right. On the top is the screen lock key. The camera lens and LED flash sit on the back. The microSD card slot is located behind the battery door, but you need to remove the battery to access it.

Verizon packages the BlackBerry Bold 9930 in a handsome black box with an AC adapter, a USB cable, a belt holster, and reference material.

Features One of the highlights of the Bold 9930 is that it ships with BlackBerry OS 7, RIM's latest mobile operating system. There aren't a lot of changes to the user interface, so those familiar with OS 6 won't feel lost at all. Most of the changes are under the hood, like improved graphics processing, a Web browser that now has a just-in-time JavaScript compiler for faster page loading and full HTML 5 support, augmented reality apps, 720p HD video support, and voice-activated universal search. You can read more about OS 7 in our review of the BlackBerry Torch 9810.

One addition to the Bold 9930 that the other OS 7 handsets don't have is that the Bold 9930 also has NFC support, which means you can purchase goods or services by swiping your phone over a compatible payment system. We weren't able to test this out with our unit, but we're happy to see that BlackBerry is embracing newer technologies like this.

The RIM BlackBerry Bold 9930 is a dual-mode CDMA/GSM phone. It will work with the CDMA Verizon bands in the U.S., but when you're traveling abroad, it'll automatically flip over to the provided SIM card so you can use the quad-band GSM network instead. This allows for greater flexibility when globe trotting. The phone also supports 3G bands on both networks, so you're free to surf the Web as well--do keep a vigilant eye on your data usage when abroad, however, as it might cost you quite a bit of money if you're not careful.